That was a mouthful for a title, but yeah, basically what I wrote in the title, can anyone explain, I can’t wrap my head around it. And could you use an example please? That helps a lot. Thanks 🙂
Edit: thank you guys for responding so fast! I think I get it now 🙂 how would you use it in a sentence using your examples?
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This is really just a vocabulary thing, about the secondary meanings of “end” and “means.”
An end can mean a goal or a purpose. (Syntax: you take actions *to* or *toward* an end.) If you see someone doing something strange, you might ask “to what end are you doing that?”
A means (it has the S for both singular and plural) is a method, a tool, a way of doing things, or an ability to do things. You’ll see it in phrases like, “by means of,” or “by all means.”
The expressions you asked about are simple combinations of these meanings. “A means to an end” is just a tool to accomplish a task, and “the ends justify the means” is saying (sometimes not sincerely) that to achieve an important goal, it might be worth it to take costly or— especially— morally repugnant steps.
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